Harvard's Win Is as Easy as ABC

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By barking that ironic command, ABC-TV "NCAA Game of the Week" producer Ned Staeckel put into motion the umpteenth interruption of Saturday's contest between Harvard and UMass. Indeed, television's presence at Harvard Stadium touched all in attendance.

"We weren't too pleased with the script ABC gave us," Crimson head coach Joe Restic commented yesterday. Normally, Restic's crew finishes its pre-game drills at 1:20, returns to Dillon Field House for some last minute instructions before retaking the gridiron at 1:27.

But Saturday found ABC's "NCAA College Football Today" thrust in the way. The pre-game show (chock full of lucrative sponsor money) dictated appearances by the Harvard and UMass bands, basically for "their background noise effects" Staeckel says.

Meanwhile, as Restic termed it, Harvard's cast of characters tightened up during the 25 minute wait. "We left the field feeling 'up,' but the guys seemed to waste adrenalin and lose that extra edge."

Restic believes that the lengthy interlude contributed to Harvard's first quarter woes, but he is not about to badmouth the TV folks. "It's a motivational factor in itself," a necessary evil in any non-league affair. "Unlike the Brown game, however, TV really didn't add any pressure because we were confident that we could execute properly."

Last year, ABC covered Harvard's romp over the Brown Bruins in Providence, a game in which TV heated the battle for the Ivy crown. Restic, who says he's not even conscious that he's on the tube once the initial whistle blows, believes that players lose sight of the TV aspects as the game progresses.

The Henry Clay of Coaches

Actually, Restic's lone concern about the ominous presence of the ABC crew revolved around the politics of coaching. The largest question mark in the minds of the Harvard braintrust was "Who do we send out for the introductions?" Not about to tee-off either his defensive or offensive units (an intense intra-squad rivalry in itself), Restic affected a classic 'great compromise' by sending out the starters on the 1975 Ivy League championship squad.

Quarterback Jim Kubacki displayed typical nonchalance when questioned about the tube's influence on his performance, noting that the deliberate "official" time-outs served as a constant reminder that the game was being beamed. Still, his biggest disappointment came after the affair, when the Fairview Park, Ohio native learned that the telecast was only regional in scope. "I thought my folks and friends were watching the game, he said.

But with the regional set-up, only the immediate New England area (excluding Connecticut) were privy to the dulcet tones of broadcasters Bob Murphy and Jack Mildren.

Murphy, the voice of the New York Mets, and color partner Mildren, a former All-American quarterback at Oklahoma, huddled with producer Staeckel at the ABC control truck three hours before the game. Mildren, a graduate of the "Don Meredith twang school of broadcasting" diligently arrived in Cambridge on Thursday.

"I tried to take a crash course in Restic's multi-flex offense," a still perplexed Mildren said in a post-game interview. "Let me tell you, it wasn't all that easy," an understatement of sorts when one listened to his fumbled commentary on the complicated system during the clash. Joe Restic chuckles when he recalls meeting Mildren. "We showed him a few films, but only really scratched the surface," Restic said.

Murphy flew in from New York early Saturday morning, after a four-inning stint on TV for the Mets' meaningless tangle with the St. Louis Cards at Shea Stadium. The 25-year broadcasting veteran quickly scanned a fact sheet on both squads before settling in for rehearsals.

Football is a game of seconds for TV. One of the clock watchers was Amy Sacks '76, a former Crimson sports reporter who landed a production assistant job with the network. Sacks was in charge of co-ordinating the on-field festivities, shuttling between the control truck (nicknamed "war headquarters") and the field.